The Five Stages of Grief
by windofbanners
Summary: When someone tells you that you have six months to live, how do you deal with the grief? Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Sam's about to go through them all. Sam-centric, Seddie, Creddie friendship.
1. Denial

**A/N: **Hey you lovely people! I'm SUPER excited about this fic, and I hope you will be too. This is a multi-chappie iCarly that focuses on one of my favorite characters of ALL time...drumroll please...the infamous Samantha Puckett! It's going to have _tons_ of Sam/Freddie/Carly friendship and Seddie undertones (because Seddie is the only pairing allowed to exist in my mind).

**Rating**: T for language (Let's face it, in real life, _no chiz_ would be replaced by _no sh-_)

**Head Canon**: Gibby is a year younger than Sam, and he is not as important to iCarly (I really wanted to just focus on the friendship of Sam/Freddie/Carly so that's the reasoning behind it). The story begins around April/May of Sam's senior year. Melanie rarely comes home and keeps minimal contact with Sam. Sam's father is not a part of her life. Her mother is neglectful and has had problems with alcoholism.

Okay...after writing, editing, and banging heads with keyboards...let's get this show on the road. I really, really hope you'll enjoy the ride!

* * *

The Five Stages of Grief

The Kübler-Ross model, commonly known as The Five Stages of Grief, is an hypothesis first introduced by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying. She created this theoretical model to apply to any form of catastrophic personal loss. Such losses may include significant life events such as the death of a loved one, major rejection, drug addiction, or the onset of a terminal disease.

* * *

I. DENIAL  
Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual. Denial can be a conscious or unconscious refusal to accept facts, information, or the reality of the situation and serves as a defense mechanism. This feeling is generally replaced with heightened awareness of possessions and individuals that will be left behind after death.

* * *

"Even as your body betrays you, your mind denies it."  
- Sara Gruen.

* * *

It starts on a Monday.

She's walking into Carly's house, laughing with Carly and Freddie about something stupid, when she feels a wave of nausea roll through and slam into her like a tsunami.

Immediately, she clamps a hand over her mouth and sprints to the bathroom, barely making it before she heaves into the toilet. She chokes at the taste of acid, and the feeling makes her throw up more, because she swears she's never felt this sick in her life. (Pucketts never get sick. It's a point of pride for her).

Carly and Freddie are there almost immediately, holding back her hair, murmuring soothing words. When she's finally done she smiles weakly and accepts the glass of water that Freddie presses into her hand.

She gurgles and spits into the sink, and when Freddie and Carly ask her if she's sick, she tells them that she must've eaten some bad bacon or something, so that they won't worry.

But she's a little afraid, because see, the thing is, she had ham for breakfast.

* * *

ignore: / _ig'nor_/ (verb) to fail to consider (usually something of significance), to put out of one's mind

ORIGIN from Latin ignorare, 'to not know'

* * *

The headaches come soon after, and they're crippling, almost devastating.

The first blindsides her in math class, and she nearly rocks out of her chair from the sheer force of it. It's like there's something in her head raging to get out, and the world blurs and roars around her from its assault.

As soon as class is over she stumbles out of the room, limply giving in to the movement of people around her, and slips out the side entrance. She walks the three miles home in a sort of daze, walking stiffly and trying to keep the vibrations of her feet hitting the pavement from rolling through her body.

She trips coming in through the door and crashes straight into her bed. For the first time, Sam's glad that her mother's never home, because she doesn't think she could bear speaking right now. Her mouth is slightly open and she's drooling on her pillow, but she doesn't dare move because the pain is eating through her like the ocean swallows a grain of salt, and to move would be to dissolve that much quicker.

She closes her eyes gingerly and feels a tear slip out because, fuck, there's no way that the human body is capable of holding this much pain inside, and she thinks that she's going to shatter if -

And then, the pain is gone. She opens her eyes in shock and there's not a throb, not a single trace of pain left behind. Just the sun shining in a blue sky and traffic humming outside her window.

But she's afraid, because this isn't normal and something with her has to be wr-

* * *

_bury one's head in the sand; have one's head in the sand_: /figurative/ to ignore or hide from obvious signs of danger. Alludes to an ostrich, which is mistakenly believed to hide its head in a hole in the ground when it sees danger

* * *

115.

She stares at the scale and wills the number to change.

115.

She's lost five pounds in the past two weeks, and even though most girls would be jumping for joy, she's shaking her head, because this doesn't make any sense at all. She's been eating more and more to compensate for throwing up after meals, and even though she's bad at math, she's not stupid, and she knows that throwing up one meal and eating two in return _does not_ equal losing weight.

For the first time in her life, she wants to be fat.

* * *

She gets out of bed one morning, blinks, and finds herself on the floor. She doesn't even remember falling.

It happens again the next day. Then two days after that day. Then three, then one, then four days after that.

The voice inside her frets loudly, telling her that she can't ignore this any longer, that she can't pretend that everything's fine.

She slaps it away. Instead, she goes out and gets herself a smoothie.

It's only after she blacks out in the stairwell and finds herself sprawled at the bottom of two flights of stairs that she finally calls the doctor.

* * *

So, let's get this over with. What pills do you want me to choke down? What disgusting liquid do I have to drink?

...Take a seat Sam.

Just hand me the prescription and I'll be gone, I promise.

Take a seat, Sam, please.

* * *

Melanoma /_ˌ__m__ɛ__l__əˈ__no__ʊ__m__ə_/ (from Greek μέλας — melas, "dark") is a malignant tumor of melanocytes. Melanocytes are cells that produce the dark pigment, melanin, which is responsible for the color of skin. Melanoma is less common than other skin cancers. However, it is much more dangerous if it is not found early.

Metastasis, or metastatic disease, is the spread of a disease from one organ or part to another non-adjacent organ or part, primarily used to refer to tumors in cancerous cases. In origin metastasis is a Greek word meaning "displacement", from μετά, meta, "next", and στάσις, stasis, "placement".

When there is distant metastasis, the cancer is generally considered incurable. The five year survival rate is less than 10%. The median survival is 6 to 12 months.

* * *

I - what the hell did you say?

You've been diagnosed with stage four metastatic melanoma that has spread to your stomach, liver, and brain.

Metastic? What the fuck does that mean?

The cancer has -

Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up. Cancer?

I'm so sorry.

...

Is there anybody we can call?

Fuck you. Fuck you and fuck your cancer.

* * *

She walks out into blinding sunlight. The sun is blazing into her retinas and burning a path across her skin, and she feels like she's caught on fire. But when she goes into the shade beneath a tree, it's like plunging herself into an ice bath, so cold that her teeth begin to rattle.

Everything is too much. The flowers outside the building are a violent shade of pink and the leaves on the trees are a fluorescent green that hurt her eyes and the sky is a sickening shade of baby blue that makes her want to hurl, and true to her thoughts, bile start to rise in her throat.

She closes her eyes, but that does nothing to dilute the noise that roars in her ears. People are talking and screaming and children are crying and cars are roaring their way down the streets, and tears are starting to prick in her eyes because it's just _so damn loud.  
_  
Sinking onto a bench outside a little coffee shop, she buries her head in her arms, immersing herself in blessed darkness. She squeezes her eyes shut for good measure and covers her ears with her fists so that everything fades to a dull hum, because the world's stopped making sense, because there's no way that eighteen year old girls can get cancer.

There's no way that she can have cancer.

* * *

She doesn't know how she does it, but she somehow ends up at Carly's for iCarly rehearsal. On time. For once.

She tries hard to seem normal, she does, but half the time she's laughing too late at Gibby's jokes and the other she's laughing a little too early, and damn, _why does_that hysterical note keep creeping into her voice? Carly and Freddie keep shooting her worried looks and giving each other meaningful talk-to-Sam eyebrow raises, and just as she predicted, Carly corners her after Gibby goes home.

"Sam, what's the matter with you? You've been acting weird today," she says, her voice all soft and gentle and concerned, but Sam can't bear to meet the look in her eyes. Instead she slides her gaze over to where Freddie's blatantly listening in while pretending to fiddle with his techo stuff and watches him for a long second. The boy's a terrible actor.

Carly's still waiting for an answer though, so Sam refocuses herself. "I'm fine Carls, really." Carly gives her a skeptical look, and damnit, her perceptiveness is anything but a blessing right now. She tries to think of something normal Sam, happy Sam, would say in this situation. Finally, she forces the corners of her mouth up and laughs.

"I'm just hungry. Mama couldn't stop thinking about the fried chicken shop she found today." She smacks her lips. "Man, that place is so good, it's illegal."

Carly laughs, instantly at ease. "What, is that what all the cool kids call it?"

Sam gives her one of her infamous blank looks. "No, Carls, it's literally illegal." She grabs her backpack and her jacket and pulls the door open. "Gotta go get a bucket before the cops bust the place."

She flies out the door to the sound of Carly's resigned but amused sigh, and undoubtedly she and Freddie are giving each other exasperated what-are-we-gonna-do-with-her glances.

She has to stop as soon as she gets outside the apartment though, because ohmigod ohmigod she can't breathe.

* * *

_The United States currently holds a population of 313,938,354 people._

Sam's always been more than a bit of a masochist.

_In 2012, 1,638,910 people will be diagnosed with cancer._

Maybe that's why she's sitting in the sketchy Starbucks where no one from school ever goes because they think it's terrifying. She's not a wimp though, so she ignores the guy with the full body tattoo and the weedy cashier kid with a bad haircut exchanging a plastic bag filled with something that's _so not sugar_, and focuses on her laptop screen, googling like her life depends on it.

_Approximately 134,460 people will be diagnosed with melanoma._

No pun intended.

_81,240 of these cases will be invasive._

She can't stop though, because these facts are fascinating her.

_34,351 of these cases will be female._

_898 of these cases will be from females living in the state of Washington._

She's doesn't know shiz about cancer, but she does know that she can't have it, because skin cancer comes from sunlight, right? And everybody knows that Seattle is cloudy like, 500 days in a year.

_25% of these females will be under the age of 40._

She doesn't know why she's doing this to herself, when this isn't going to do anything, this isn't going to make everything go away and turn into a happy fairytale ending, but she just needs an answer, she just needs to know, she just needs a reason as to why she's dy-

_3% of all melanoma cases reach stage IV._

She does some math, plugs some numbers into her PearPod, and watches the answer stutter to life in front of her.

* * *

Odds of being born a twin in North America: 90

Odds of dating a millionaire: 1 out of 215

Odds of winning an Academy Award: 1 out of 11,500

Odds of winning an Olympic medal: 1 out of 662,000

Odds of dying from being struck by lightening: 1 out of 2,320,0000

Odds of becoming president: 1 out of 10,000,000

Odds of holding a winning mega millions lottery ticket: 1 out of 176,000,000

Odds of being an eighteen year old girl living in the state of Washington who has been diagnosed with stage IV metastatic melanoma: 1 out of 214,532,600

* * *

She's always loved wandering Seattles streets at night. It's been a time for reflection, for kicking cans and flicking her lighter, for wandering freely through closed gate and fences, for hopping over signs that are staked in the ground. But tonight, it's different. She's running.

The night is wild and dark with sound, a frenzied symphony of police sirens and honking horns and screeching brakes and all the typical other sounds that make up the city of Seattle. Everything is in its place – the leering men, the suspicious shopkeepers, the weary-faced mothers coming home from some late shift – but Sam doesn't stay and stop to chat. She keeps her feet moving and sets her face in stone.

The local convenient store on Elliott Street has signs pasted all over its windows that scream to _take your chances_! and to _enter the lottery today_! She chokes back the slightly hysterical laugh that bubbles up in her throat. Maybe she should go and buy herself a thousand tickets. With her odds, she would win a billion - no, a trillion - dollars.

Because, you know, she's such a lucky fucking girl.

Finally, after hours of wandering, she stops under a streetlight and smoothes out the piece of paper in her hand, watching as harsh yellow light picks out the creases and shades them in.

_Metastatic melanoma that has spread to the stomach, liver, and brain_.

She traces the letters with a finger, lips silently moving around each word. Metastatic. Three t's, yet all of them are silent. She says it aloud to herself and listens to it echo in the empty streets. Such a strange sounding word. And melanoma. Even odder. She whispers the word, and all of its syllables feel like liquid in her mouth. It's such a soft, gentle word.

She looks at the piece of paper again. Metastatic melanoma. Wasn't it only people from Denmark or Finland with white blond hair and ice blue eyes and stupid pink-tinted skin that could get skin cancer? Because she has Italian blood in her, and everybody knows that Italians have olive skin that never even burns. She'd let the doctors drain her body of blood if it meant proving her genetic past. Her nails involuntarily press into her fisted palms. God, she'd draw the blood herself.

She holds her arms up to the light, watching as the light turns them golden, beautiful. Her skin is smooth, slightly tanned, but she's never gone to a single tanning bed, never even tanned at the beach. Whenever Washington's weather actually permitted trips to the shore, she would always be the one beating all the boys at volleyball while Carly would be rotating herself every twenty minutes like a chicken on a rotisserie, like a -

Fuck.

The world spins.

And shatters.

She thinks of Carly. Spencer. Melanie. Her mother. Gibby. Her heart spasms. Freddie.

She crushes the piece of paper in her hand and begins to run, in her skin tight jeans and her studded black boots, stumbling away from the ghosts clamoring for her attention, roaring in her ears, clinging to her skin.

Because she's eighteen and she has cancer.

And in five months, she's going to die.

* * *

"The real world is where the monsters are."  
― R. Riordan

* * *

**A/N:** ...So...whaddya guys think? You should click that button there and let me know! Y'know, that pretty one RIGHT BENEATH THESE WORDS. :)

Before I end this, I'd first like to say that I'm not an oncologist (I am 16 years old). Therefore, whatever symptoms and medical topics that are in my writing are products of google. Carefuly researched products of google, yes, but google all the same. I try to stay as realistic as possible in my writing (the statistics and cancer rates in this chapter are all true), but I'm not writing as a doctor presenting a case to her peers. I'm writing this as a sixteen year old girl trying to understand what it's like when you are the person behind the diagnosis - an eighteen year old girl who's been told she has six months to live.

Second of all, Sam will, and I hate to write this, but she will die in the end. The facts presented in this fic are all true - the survival rate for this specific type of cancer is terribly, terribly, low, and although in movies and tv shows miracles can happen, in reality, people die. Friends die. Eighteen year old girls with their whole life in front of them die. I hope this won't deter any readers, and if it does, I understand, but I don't _want_ a sugary happy ending. Because the truth is, whether we live to be be 30 or 90 - and in this case, 18 - we all have a death sentence hanging over us.

~Cat


	2. Anger

**A/N: **Hey guys! Sorry for the long wait and thanks to all the _lovely _ reviewers who made my day! It's hard for me to update because of college apps (kill. me. now) but I _really _want to finish this before the series ends, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

* * *

II. ANGER  
Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. Because of anger, the person is very difficult to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy. Anger can manifest itself in different ways. People can be angry with themselves, with others, and especially with those who are close to them.

* * *

"Do not go gentle into that good night.  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."  
~Dylan Thomas

* * *

She's never been good with emotions. She just never really learned how, she guessed. If other people had feelings like kittens or puppies or bunnies, her emotions were like an untamed wolf tearing up the ground with its claws and snarling to get loose.

Carly kept it at bay. Freddie could keep it at bay. And once upon a time, Sam tried to keep it at bay.

But now, now, she lets go of the rope and watches the carnage unfold, detached, cool, above it all. She watches the wolf rip flesh to shreds, watches blood seep into the ground , watched it hurl itself through the world like a meteor hurtling through space, and in this way, she feels like she can breathe.

And when it turns on her, she lets it come, watches blood swell and burst into angry red rivers washing over her skin.

Of course, this is all a metaphor.

* * *

There are a variety of treatment options –

I don't want your fucking treatment.

Sam, a combination of chemotherapy, radiology, and immunotherapy will be able to extend your lifespan by-

By what? A month? Two weeks? Will I get six months of hell instead of five? What a fucking gift!

...

I thought so.

* * *

School becomes her gladiatorial arena. She doesn't just push, she kicks and scratches and rips and _claws _her way through the hallways.

When Wendell the Weirdo calls her a bitch, she slaps him clear in the face. It isn't just a glancing blow, it is a whip to the cheek and it is meant to scar, to wound, to bleed.

With the sound still ringing in the stunned silence, Sam walks away, chin up, shoulders back. Violence is always the answer.

* * *

She wakes up in the night now, gasping for air, covered in sweat. It's like every breath is a knife to her back and her heart feels so constricted that she thinks she's having a heart attack. Every heartbeat is a thud that shakes her entire body and each one pounds through her entire body like she's nothing but a throbbing pulse.

And it isn't from fear or terror, god no. It's the cancer that's doing all this to her. It's just because of the cancer that eating her alive, the body that is betraying her from the inside and that every cell in her body is working against her. It's because of the tumors that are being fed with every breath she takes that are going to leave her dea-

When she tells the doctor about it, he says it isn't because of the cancer. She tells him to go to hell.

* * *

Sam chews on her pencil, blatantly ignoring both the teacher at the front of the room and Carly staring holes into her back. She has more important musings on her mind.

Why didn't a serial killer get cancer? A prisoner sitting in jail with a life sentence? Hell, the old man down the street who looks like he's gonna croak any second now? The loser with greasy hair at the Walmart who's 52 and unmarried and whose friend in the world is a dog? She isn't a saint, but surely her life is worth more than that?

Her mouth twists as she thinks of another puzzle.

Sam toughened herself up and made herself strong. She ran, she swam, she lifted weights, all so nothing would be able to touch her. She took self-defense classes until she started making up moves of her own, all so she could walk the streets at night safely, knowing that she was the one to fear. It made her feel safe, like nothing could touch her.

But her twin had always been the weaker one. Melanie cried at a touch. She was a wimp. She was a girl. She still couldn't handle a punch and a pinch would probably bruise her skin.

So why didn't Melanie get cancer?

Hell, Why didn't Gibby? Spencer? Why didn't -

(she knows she's sick in the mind in more ways than one. she doesn't need someone to tell her that)

* * *

Freddie's been getting angry, she can tell.

Every time she snaps at Spencer or Carly or Gibby during iCarly rehearsals, she sees his eyes darken ever so slightly and his jaw set a little more. Subtle things, but she's always been able to read him better than most.

A tiny voice of reason inside of her agrees with him and tells her that she's being irrational and that she's been too destructive lately, even for her.

But the majority of her wants to sink her fist into his stomach and watch him cry in pain. Because really, what gives him the right to be angry at her? Because really, he's not the one DYING.

* * *

One cloudy Seattle night, she takes all of her college pamphlets and burns them in an alleyway. With a hiss of a match and the fragrant scent of gasoline, she's got a decent sized flame going pretty soon, and gathers the sizable pile of papers into her hands.

She couldn't believe it when she got into NYU. Carly had gotten her letter of acceptance a day before and Sam had smiled and screamed and pulled all the appropriate face motions, but on the inside, she was breaking, because if Carly's letter had come and hers hadn't, well, there was only one logical conclusion.

But when her letter arrived the next day, she had torn into it with shaking hands and collapsed into a shrieking Carly's arms before running around the entire apartment screaming her joy.

(Turns out decent senior year grades and being the star of an internationally renowned web show trumped even three terrible years of schooling).

And no matter how happy Carly and Freddie were for her, they would never understand the depth of her relief. Finally, she could escape. Finally, she could get away from the prison she called her home, the jailer she called her mother, and the ghost she called her sister. She could start over in the city of her dreams, with Carly and Freddie by her side, ready for freedom. She would be able to breathe.

But now, she looks down at the packet of papers, tightens her lips, and tosses everything into the flames. Acceptance letters, transcripts, recommendations, she watches as they all curl into smoke against a black sky. What did any of it come to?

When she hears sirens wailing in the distance, she skirts around the blaze and into the dark night. Laughing.

* * *

When she steps into the apartment, it's half past twelve. The time is no surprise to her, she's been coming in late for the past two weeks, spending her nights wandering city streets, but the sight of her mother sitting on the couch in the living room is.

She doesn't let her confusion show though, and looks at the woman with flat eyes before throwing her bag on the loveseat. She's just turned to stalk down the hallway to her bedroom when her mother speaks.

"Where've you been?" There's weary anger in her mother's voice, a pathetic attempt to exert control over another human being.

Sam snorts. It's almost funny, how sad this play is. Mother pretends to care, daughter acts like she's sorry. "Like you care," she says coldly without turning around, deviating from her usual lines.

Her mother's voice sharpens. "Don't talk to your mother like that."

Sam smirks before turning to face the woman in the chair. "A mother is someone who gives a shit about her kids," she says slowly, soaking each word in malice. "I'm sorry, but I don't see my mother here."

"How dare you-"

"Give it up Mom," Sam sighs, a mocking smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "You don't give a fuck about me."

"I love you Samantha, and I don't know why you would ever suggest otherwise," her mother says loudly.

If she says anything else, then Sam doesn't hear it, because at that moment, rage, pure, hot, rage, floods her veins and blurs her vision. Her hand twitches and she comes _this close_ to slapping her mother across the face, because how dare she, _how dare she_ say those lies when it's obvious that she's never meant them.

In her mind, she flies towards her mother and tears into her with flesh and watches her bleed. She wants her mother to feel in full the pain that Sam has felt every day for the past eighteen years. She wants her mother, breath broken and body bruised, to cry, to beg for mercy.

But even she has a limit, so she uses her words instead. "Fuck you," she says in a low voice, slowly, deliberately. "_Fuck you_." When she locks herself inside her room, she looks down to see her hands trembling.

* * *

Sam drums her fingers on the table as she waits for the page to load. When email finally opens, she skims through American Sparrow offers and Fat Cake coupons and is ready to empty the entire inbox when she sees an email from sparklypinkprincess . Melanie.

Her sister emails once every couple of months, claiming that she's been busy with schoolwork and friends and apologizing profusely for her absence. Melanie always say that she misses Sam and that she has to visit soon, but Sam has known for a while that it's only to stave off the guilt.

Usually, she replies wearily, with her usually brusqueness to let Melanie know that she hasn't changed and that she will always be the brash sister at home. But she's sick of being the good one, the unselfish one.

So she moves her cursor over the file and clicks the delete button. She stares at the blank screen once her action has been completed. That was extraordinarily satisfying._  
_

* * *

breaking point: /_brākiNG point_/ (noun) the moment of greatest strain at which someone or something gives way

_ORIGIN 1908, first used by H. G. Wells in elaborating the apparatus of war, "until the accumulating tensions should reach the breaking-point."_

* * *

It happens on a Tuesday.

"Sam, you can't do that!" Carly's high-pitched voice has long since taken on the tone of whining, and Sam didn't even want to come to iCarly rehearsal today, and the sound of her best friend's voice is literally making Sam's ears bleed and she has a monster headache that's threatening to split her in two.

So she cracks. She breaks the unspoken rule that Sam never swears at Carly, Sam never hurts Carly, Sam always protects Carly, and wishes her words into knives.

"Yeah, well, fuck you."

Everything falls to pieces after that.

Freddie shoves her and she stumbles back, half caught off guard, half caught up in her pain, but she catches herself before she falls and lashes out at him.

"Don't touch me!" Her hand whips towards him, but in one fluid move, he wrenches her arm down and pushes her back. His eyes are black and blazing.

"Back off Sam." He waves Carly behind him and crosses his arms. By now, Sam and Gibby are off their feet and have identical looks of confusion on their faces, but all Sam can see is the look of hatred on Freddy's face. She juts out her chin and pretends like she doesn't care, but on the inside, she's already starting sobbing.

"What the hell is the matter with you? You're acting like a bitch, Sam." Freddie's words crack against her skin and she flinches invisibly. No one disagrees with him.

Spencer's hands are slightly outstretched and his eyes are open and curious. Gibby has one hand on his hip and the other stabbing the air in her direction, already a believer in Freddie's statement. Carly's reaching one hand out towards her with eyes pleading. Freddie's face is cold, colder than she's ever seen it. They're standing in a line, closing her in like a chain-link fence, facing her like a firing squad.

She's all alone.

And that thought alone is enough to finally, finally, break her.

"I'm DYING, okay?"

Those five syllables rip the tape from her lips and open the floodgates of her mouth, and for the first time in forever, she lets herself speak without thinking. The deluge of words pouring out of her washes her away from the people in the room, bringing her an ocean away from them, leaving her both powerful and terrible as she destroys them with every twist of her lips.

In reality, the look on their faces would crush her little paper heart; in another life, the way their facial expressions change would make her laugh out loud. But she doesn't have another life, and she only has one reality, this one, right now, and it's slipping away from her with every beat of her traitor of a heart. So she spurs the anger to rage through her and doesn't even let herself feel when Carly starts crying.

When she's finally done, her lips feel stained and corroded by the words that burned themselves free. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand before daring to look at her friends.

Gibby is frozen. Spencer is rocking back and forth with his head in his hands. Carly is on the ground staring at Sam with eyes that won't blink, legs splayed at an angle that has to be uncomfortable, with a hand clamped over her mouth and a face glazed with tears.

And Freddie-

Sam turns on her heel and slams the door behind her.

She's had enough pain for this lifetime

* * *

"We think that by hating someone we hurt them...But hatred is a curved blade, and the harm we do to others, we also do to ourselves."  
― Mitch Albom

* * *

**A/N:**


End file.
